Thewa Art Work
Thewa is a traditional craft of fusing hand carved gold foil on coloured glass sheet.
The gold foil is fused on a glass sheet in such a way that the gold foils fuses into the glass sheet surface. The glass surface becomes smooth and unison with the gold foil giving no
sign of separate surfaces of glass and the gold foil. The union of the gold foil with the glass sheet is done without using any kind of glue or pasting materials. The art of fusing
the gold foil into the glass surface without using any pasting material is a secret art limited only to the artisans of Raj Soni clan. The Thewa Art in itself is practiced only by the male members of Raj Soni clan.
The gold used in the foil is usually of 23 Caret.
The thickness of the gold foil remains less than three millimeter (mm).
The background of the gold foil (Thewa ki Patti) is usually made of basic colours red, green, yellow and blue glass sheets supported by the same colour shinny paper placed inside the base.
The base material is of precious metals like Gold and Silver. However semi-precious metals like copper and alloys of copper with gold may also be used.
The Vaada, Silver ring holds between 3 mm and 5 mm depth.
The glass sheet of thickness between 1.5 mm and 2.5 mm is used for fusing with handcarved gold foil.
Nature, sight scenes like hunting, animals and birds, like dancing peacock, traditional Rajasthani and Gujarati drawings, Portraits of God, Goddess and members of Royal Families and the narrations, designs and stories register in the Maru Gujara paintings are used as drawings for carving out the gold foil. Maru Gujara paintings are the main subjects narrated in the drawings of Thewa art.
All the products are made by the experienced artisans strictly maintaining the specifications and standard. Since the artisans belong to the same clan and use secret art the maintenance of the standard of the products becomes simpler.
The Thewa art work on the gold foil is done in three stages, i.e.,
Kandarana (Drawing figures), Cheerana (Decorating the carved figure) and Jaali katana (Cutting the waste material by removing the not required gold foil portion).